One week to go

Last July 15th I went into hospital for what was scheduled as a routine hip operation. In the event I spent more than five months there. It was a powerful experience. When it became evident that I was not going to be one those standard patients who are in and out in the prescribed 5 days my life began to change in ways that I could never have imagined.

Friends sometimes assumed I was bored and looked slightly askance when I told them I did not have time to be bored. My day started early and well before the ward's day. Because my sleep pattern is poor, I am often awake at 3am. and was able to read in quiet of the early morning. What probably helped me keep my sanity through the six operations was having dongle account arranged by a friend, Ihar Ivanou from Minsk. This, and a mobile phone manufactured for older people. The younger doctors and nurses laughed openly at it telling me that it was so old fashioned. That may be true but it certainly worked, not least when it was dropped and shattered in numbers of parts. My party trick was to ask them for it back, in bits, and then quickly reassemble it. 

As the months wore on without my seeming to get better it became harder to keep cheerful. One loose word to a nurse about hopeless I felt led to a ward doctor getting a psychiatrist to see me. Only it took the psychiatrist six weeks to get in to the ward to see me. It was just as well that I was not suicidal. When we did meet we agreed my mood was a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. What was of greater interest was what happened early on during the weeks. I had gone back home and quickly been readmitted via Accident and Emergency. I must have been quite toxic as the infection gathered pace. I became afraid that various items of medical equipment were spying on me.  Worse, a health care assistant was, I believed, plotting to kill me. I told a nurse who said she thought I should take an anti-psychotic. This was on the basis of a two minute conversation in the middle of he night. So a psychotic episode came and went and has fortunately not returned.

Speaking of psychotic episodes I decided that really I was in retreat on some mountain side in somewhere like Spain. The day began with the live streaming of Lauds in Latin from a Benedictine abbey in Burgundy. The singing was sometimes so out of tune it had all the marks of authenticity not like the precision that some liturgy queens demand in a rather OCD manner. The fifty minutes of chant ends with the glorious build up of the Benedicite then ps 148, 49 and 150 followed by the Benedictus. Once the Latin sinks it the whole becomes a glorious hymn of praise (hence Lauds) to creation.

So, having to go back into hospital leaves me somewhat anxious. I am spending this week finishing off the revision of the paper that I was determined to get in for review before I went in hospital last time. The paper is much slimmer now, more sharply focussed and ready to go back. My view now is that the Journal can do what they like with it. The challenge is to get the iPhone iTunes library filled with music and books to occupy me with over what ever stay I end up having. I thought I would re-read Graham Greene's novels in order... and keep a notebook via the blog. Watch this space.